Shanghai Health Development Research Center (Shanghai Medical Information Center).
Department of Gerontology, University of Massachusetts Boston.
Biosci Trends. 2019 Sep 17;13(4):287-291. doi: 10.5582/bst.2019.01213. Epub 2019 Aug 21.
The aging of a population structure is an inevitable path of demographic transition, as an inescapable result of decline in fertility rate and extension in life expectancy. Although demographic transition occurred earlier in Japan than in China, the two countries had similar patterns, both of which took a much shorter period of time than Western countries to complete demographic transition, as well as have been aging at a rapid speed that has rarely been seen in the world. Japan has the highest level of population aging in the world, and China has been experiencing a very fast pace of the population aging process and has the largest older population. Drawing upon data from World Population Prospects (2019), this paper compares changes in population aging in both China and Japan. Findings show that Japan's aging process is 30 years ahead of China, but China has been changing in a similar way as Japan. To be specific, both countries experienced four phases of the population aging process: accelerated development period, rapid development period, slow down period and high-level maintained period. In addition, both countries had a quick growing rate of population aging. It will take China 23 years and 10 years respectively for the aging rate increasing from 7% to 14% and then to 20%, while Japan took 24 and 11 years respectively, which is much shorter than developed countries in the West. Furthermore, China has a faster pace than Japan in population aging in the next 25 years. We found that from 2019-2044, China's aging rate, elderly dependency ratio, oldest-old coefficient and median age of population will increase 13.24 percent points, 24.21 percent points, 8.33 percent points, and 8.47 years, while the four indicators of Japan will increase 8.38 percent points, 22.52 percent points, 8.29 percent points, and 6.20 years, respectively.
人口结构老龄化是人口转变的必然路径，是生育率下降和预期寿命延长的必然结果。尽管人口转变在日本比在中国更早发生，但两国的模式相似，都用比西方国家短得多的时间完成了人口转变，并以世界罕见的速度迅速老龄化。日本是世界上人口老龄化程度最高的国家，而中国正经历着人口老龄化进程非常快的阶段，拥有世界上最大的老年人口。本文利用世界人口展望（2019 年）的数据，比较了中国和日本人口老龄化的变化。研究结果表明，日本的老龄化进程比中国早 30 年，但中国的变化方式与日本相似。具体来说，两国都经历了人口老龄化的四个阶段：加速发展期、快速发展期、减速期和高水平维持期。此外，两国人口老龄化增长速度都很快。中国的老龄化率从 7%增加到 14%再增加到 20%需要 23 年和 10 年，日本分别需要 24 年和 11 年，这比西方发达国家短得多。此外，在未来 25 年，中国人口老龄化的速度将快于日本。我们发现，从 2019 年到 2044 年，中国的老龄化率、老年抚养比、高龄老人系数和人口中位数年龄将分别增加 13.24 个百分点、24.21 个百分点、8.33 个百分点和 8.47 岁，而日本的这四个指标将分别增加 8.38 个百分点、22.52 个百分点、8.29 个百分点和 6.20 岁。
